Dear List,
When John Shade clasped Kinbote's knee and observed that: kings never die,
they only disappear, this sentence reminded me of some old
English saying.
Not Oscar Wilde's on dead Americans, nor Peter Pan's
tinkle-bell. So I went through an entire section of a "Bloomsbury
Reference" ( "Thematic Dictionary of Quotations") searching for quotes
on "death" and "disappearance", to no avail.
Vladimir Nabokov appeared eight times:
1. "Like so many ageing college people, Pnin had long ceased to notice the
existence of students on the campus"
[(1899-1977) Russian-born US novelist.
"Pnin", Ch.3]
2. "Spring and summer did happen in Cambridge almost every year" [RLSK, Ch.5]
3. "Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know." [ "Pnin, Ch.6]
4."Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one" [ "Pale Fire", Commentary ]
5. "Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man" [ Radio Times,Oct.1962]
6. "Lolita, light of my life, dire of my loins. My sin, my Soul." [ "Lolita"]
7. "A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past." [ "Strong Opinions, Ch.20]
8. "Poor Knight! he really had two periods, the first - a dull man writing broken English, the second - a broken man writing dull English" [ RLSK, Ch.1]
Each entry came under a special title: Academics, Cambridge, Education, Life
and Death, Literature, Lust, Writers and Writing. I would have selected a
completely different set of entries and probably so would everyone at the
List. Quite a surprising compilation. Then I decided to try a "google
search ". As soon as I found: "Old magicians never die, they just
disappear" I thought I had hit the gold pot.
Wrong again if I
judge from the context where it was cited. I'll bring up a
selection of quotes on the theme - just for the fun of it, starting
with OLD MAGICIANS never die, they just disappear. Also, OLD
KINGS never die, they just get throne away (oops!).Then came: "old
accountants never die, they just lose their balance.", "old actors never die,
they just drop a part."; "old alcoholics never die, they just lose their
spirit."; "old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal. "old
musicians never die, they just decompose" and, my favourite: " old chinese
cooks never die, they just wok away."
In short: does anyone remember some Mother Goose kind of sentence that could have served as a motif for Shade's ?
Jansy